Blood Clot Migrates to the Vice President's Heart

Bethesda, MD (APE) – a spokesperson for the Bethesda Naval Hospital early this morning confirmed that a blood clot in the vice president’s left leg had indeed migrated to his heart. He stated that the entire staff had breached a collective sigh of relief as the clot was then removed in a straightforward 15 minute procedure requiring only some local anesthesia. The White House confirmed that Mr. Cheney had indeed suffered no ill effects from the procedure and was looking forward to returning to work sometime after lunch.

“This is indeed a tribute to modern medical technology as well as the vice president’s constitution,” stated Franklyn Stein, MD, spokesperson for the Bethesda Naval Hospital cardiac care unit. “The vice president was really never in any danger, as his heart had been removed years ago and replaced with a high-tech device designed to catch blood clots that might migrate from the leg. The device most resembles an oversized permanent coffee filter. It was just a simple matter of opening the chest cavity under local anesthesia and dumping the contents of the filter.”

Dr. Stein went on to explain that there was really never any danger of a complicating stroke for the vice president, as the neurons making up his remaining central nervous system had become hardened and long resistant to oxygen deprivation secondary to many years of decreased blood flow and alcohol consumption.

“As a precaution we had begun treatment with warfarin when the vice president was first diagnosed with the deep venous thrombosis. We became a little concerned as Mr. Cheney displayed an unusually high sensitivity to what is essentially “rat poison”. We were fortunate that the clot dislodged and migrated so quickly that we were able to discontinue therapy,” stated Stein.

A spokesperson for the White House stated that Speaker of the House of Nancy Pelosi had not been notified as next in succession in that the vice president’s life was never really in any danger.

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